Formed: 1993From:
San Francisco,
CA,
United StatesLast Known Status: Active

Background

Machine Head burst onto the 90's metal scene serving up 80's style thrash with a contemporary sound that some would even venture to call nu-metal. With former Vio-lence bandmember Rob Flynn handling guitars and vocals, Logan Mader on lead guitars, Adam Duce on bass and Chris Kontos on drums, the band released 'Burn My Eyes' to much critical acclaim. The album became a landmark release for the band and that decade in metal.

Machine Head's lineup would see a few members come and go, and eventually Vio-lence's Phil Demmel would end up back with bandmate Rob Flynn after filling in on guitar on tour for a while.

The band followed up 'Burn My Eyes' with solid sophomore release of 'The More Things Change'. 'The Burning Red', the band's third release, took on a decidely more nu-metal feel. Their fourth release, 'Supercharger', took it a step further, seemingly trying to make that sound more accessible to the masses with Rob singing on certain songs and the overall tempo slower and less heavy than previous releases.

In 2002, the band split with US label Roadrunner Records. Eventually, Machine Head and Roadrunner US worked out their differences and 'Through The Ashes of Empires' was released in the US in 2004, almost 6 months after the European release. The album still charted at #88 on Billboard's albums chart, moving more than 11,000 copies in its first week. While not neccessarily a return to form per se, TTAOE had a much heavier and aggessive sound, while still incorporating many elements of the band's sound as it had evolved over the years.

California's Once Human - featuring ex-Machine Head/Soulfly guitarist Logan Mader - teases a new song and music video for a new song, which will be featured on the new album "Evolution" due out on January 20th via earMusic.

Along with the album teaser the band shares also the cover art (done by Seth Siro Anton of Septic Flesh) and track listing for the effort: More...

Bay Area metal titans Machine Head will release a new single entitled "Is There Anybody Out There?" on June 3rd.

"The song is about love, loneliness, racism, and not getting what is going on in the world/America," comments guitarist/vocalist Robb Flynn. "It's very much about current events, but applies to a bigger picture."

New single "Is There Anybody Out There?" will be made available digitally for purchase on iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play, and will also be available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all streaming services. Today, the track made its exclusive premiere via SiriusXM Radio's "Octane" Channel 37. More...

Machine Head is currently touring Europe, but unfortunately the band had to cancel a batch of shows due to frontman Robb Flynn suffering from an infection. The group has now announced the rescheduled dates for these shows.

Commented Flynn: "The good news is that all of the cancelled shows have been rescheduled to mid-March after the UK dates, and amazingly, there was an avail in Paris when we looked, so we took it with a quickness very quickly.

"I realize this has been disappointing for many of you, (travel plans, timing, etc) please know that no one has been more disappointed about this than me. We thank you for your understanding and patience during the extremely frustrating time, we will make it up to you Head Cases!!”

Bay Area titans Machine Head will kick off an exclusive headline tour tomorrow in Geneva, Switzerland.

This "An Evening With Machine Head" trek spans across mainland Europe and the U.K will feature no support bands, no locals, and just 2 hours of bone-crunching metal anthems.

"We’re doing ‘An Evening With’ Machine Head. Meaning: it’ll just be us, folks,” commented guitarist/vocalist Robb Flynn. “We are really excited about playing longer sets, throwing in some deep cuts, and just having it be our own world. We did this in the U.S. and eastern Europe recently and it’s done amazingly well.

"Fans seem to really love the 'Evening With…' format for a band like us who has a long-standing and diverse catalog. While the sets vary from night to night, there were a couple nights on the last run where we reached the 2 hour and 40 minute mark. It was crazy! We could have played all night, the crowd was so insane!!”

Robb Flynn also recently had some choice words for Phil Anselmo that have been dominating the Internet for days. If you haven't seen the video yet, check it out here. Catch Machine Head live on these dates: More...

Update: Phil Anselmo has now released a video apologizing for what occurred at Dimebash. Watch it here.

The close of the Dimebash event this week was marred by controversy when Phil Anselmo closed out his set by throwing a Nazi salute and screaming "white power!' at the crowd. Anselmo has since responded to video of the incident (available below) by commenting:

"OK folks, I'll own this one, but dammit, I was joking, and the 'inside joke of the night' was because we were drinking fucking white wine, hahaha...

"Of all fucking things. Some of y'all need to thicken up your skin. There's plenty of fuckers to pick on with a more realistic agenda. I fucking love everyone, I fucking loathe everyone, and that's that. No apologies from me. PHA '16."

Not everyone is accepting his statement however, as Machine Head's Robb Flynn has released a video questioning the comment about white wine. Check it out here: More...

"French Head Cases, we are very disappointed to break this news to you, but unfortunately, a new venue / date was not able to be sorted in time for a Paris show (originally scheduled for Feb 16th, 2016).

"As we announced previous, it was expected for almost a month that Le Bataclan would re-open in time for our show, but in December we got news that it would (understandably) remain closed for continued investigations after the terror attacks.

"At that point, we looked into every possible option, adding a date at the beginning, a date in the first week, tagging on to the end of tour after Glasgow... everything... no luck. The sad fact is, we were a month behind most every other re-routing happening. More...

"We’re doing an evening with Machine Head. Meaning: it’ll just be us, folks,” commented guitarist/vocalist Robb Flynn. “We are really excited about playing longer sets, throwing in some deep cuts, and just having it be our own world. We did this in the U.S. and eastern Europe recently and it’s done amazingly well. Fans seem to really love the 'Evening With…' format for a band like us who has a long-standing and diverse catalog. While the sets vary from night to night, there were a couple nights on the last run where we reached the 2 hour and 40 minute mark. It was crazy! We could have played all night, the crowd was so insane!!”

Machine Head has been doing primarily solo shows since cancelling a tour with Epica and Children of Bodom to finish new album "Bloodstone and Diamonds." In regards to the band’s decision to not bring along support acts as well as no longer play festival slots, Flynn elaborates:

"We’re not trying to have a good time with a bunch of people who don’t know who we are. If Machine Head throws a party, big or small, we don’t want a bunch of ‘strangers’ there. This is about us and you guys, the die-hards, the Head Cases, The Fucking Undesirables! We don’t care about the others out there. We’re here and we’re not going anywhere. If those people want to be a part of this, they know where to find us. So for the time being, and maybe ‘forever’, we’re done reaching out for them." More...

With the king of music games about to make a triumphant return in less than two weeks, it seemed like a good time to take another look at the limited offerings available where video games collide with heavy metal.

For those who missed our previous three articles discussing various games with heavy metal soundtracks, be sure to go back and check 'em out (and let us know if you end up playing or re-playing any of these gems!):

Rock Band

There was this utterly glorious time where console gaming was flush with a stable lineup of music games and every weekend involved a bottle of something hard and your best friends making drunken fools of themselves in your living room till 2 AM. Typically your neighbors would not be amused, but fuck them because they don't like metal anyway.

Unfortunately that time died when Activision decided to flood the market with an absurd number of Guitar Hero entries and the era of the music game came to a sudden, crashing halt.

Obviously the Rock Band titles had plenty of rock tunes, but a handful of legitimate metal was also involved in the various incarnations and weekly DLC updates, adding in the likes of Emperor, Machine Head, and a whole lot more. Where things really took off was in the Rock Band Network, which let bands make their own tracks, seeing tons of underground groups add in their own music.

It was a truly sad day when Harmonix announced there would be no more DLC coming to Rock Band back in 2013, but an unexpected light at the end of the tunnel appeared just a few months ago. Back in March, Harmonix made a whole lot of fans happy by officially announcing Rock Band 4, which seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream up till that point.

Due out October 6, Rock Band 4's launch lineup of metal will include Dream Theater, Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Baby Metal, System Of A Down, and more, with loads of metallic downloadable songs no doubt prepped and ready to drop each week.

Needless to say I'm greatly looking forward to it, except that unfortunately Guitar Hero is also returning. Maybe Activision can keep it in its pants this time around and not kill music gaming again by releasing six or so games a year.

Metal Allegiance premieres another new music video for the band's cover of Dio's “We Rock“, taken from the band's self-titled debut album, which is out now in stores via Nuclear Blast Entertainment. The supergroup's core musicians include Megadeth‘s David Ellefson, Testament‘s Alex Skolnick and Mike Portnoy of The Winery Dogs/ex-Dream Theater.

Former Soulfly and Machine Head guitarist Logan Mader's new female fronted project Once Human premieres its new song and music video titled "You Cunt", taken from the band's upcoming new album "The Life I Remember", set to drop Sept. 4th via earMUSIC. Says the band about the brutal new video:

Vocalist Lauren: "Creating the visual for the music Logan and I wrote, was like hand painting our sound. I feel so fortunate that I could express myself as an artist here in multiple ways.. I have never felt so alive."

Adds Logan Mader: "After more than a decade away from the stage it feels good to be back in action with Once Human. Here's the first look at who we are."

Machine Head has released a video clip from Guadalajara as the band kicks off a Latin American tour, showcasing first-day-of-tour-insanity, the crew solving gear issues, and Guadalajara coming through in the end. Remaining dates are as follow:

The Bay area metal titans from Machine Head have confirmed today their return to Europe later this year in support of latest album "Bloodstone & Diamonds."

After a U.S. tour with no supporting outfits, the band will bring the "An evening with Machine Head" experience to Europe with no support bands but featuring an extensive, career spanning setlist. Date are as follows: More...

Let me explain. We’ve all heard the complaints of modern production woes, the trendy obsession with blinding speed and out-tech-ing each other, and the resultant dearth of memorable songwriting. Chances are you’ve done quite a bit of this complaining yourself. I know I have.

I know what brutal death metal is; and black metal, and grindcore, and so on. I know how “extreme” metal can get, and I’m a fan of tons of that stuff. I’m a metal journalist. It’s my job to know these things.

There are several reasons, each having to do with the merits of each individual instrument and the man playing it, for Machine Head’s status as Heaviest Metal Band in the World. To go with the most obvious reason, I will tell you right now that no one, and I mean NO ONE, comes close to touching Mr. Robert Flynn in terms of absolute, raw, uncut vocal intensity. Two decades and eight albums deep into Machine Head’s career, he has become a monster.

Guttural death growls, atonal black metal shrieks, I’ve heard it all. I love a great deal of it. But you know what? Little of it shocks or scares me anymore. Precious few bands of the elite-approved, underground, “extreme” variety actually provoke a sense of DANGER in me. Robb Flynn does.

The secret is passion. Unbridled, burning passion, rage, and all-around emotion. Flynn’s voice, at its harshest, is the sound of a man threatening to rip your head off and meaning it. At its softest, it’s the sound of a grieving mourner at a funeral, choking his way through a moving hymn. These two poles, and everything between, are part and parcel of the same experience: pure emotion, and pure intensity.

The guitars and rhythm section follow suit. For all the band’s stylistic evolution and musical expansion over the years, the core ingredient of bone-crushing groove remains unchanged. Whether the band is veering into thrashy or sludgy territory, it doesn’t matter: you can truly BANG YOUR HEAD to this stuff. Machine Head's riffing whips up a kind of aural stigmata, wherein you almost feel the brutal pain of a sledgehammer impacting your body.

All of this translates directly to the live setting. Machine Head are a live band at heart (and many bands of the technical sort are decidedly not). They’ve always sounded that way on record, because their music is MEANT to be experienced in concert. Think of that word’s other meaning: union, harmony. In this case, a bonding between artist and fan. A collective sharing of passion, rage, euphoria, lamentation. EMOTION. More...

Machine Head has completed routing on the most comprehensive U.S. tour in the band's 20 year history, a 42-city jaunt across America and Canada for the launch of new album “Bloodstone & Diamonds” that will be performed as “An Evening With.” As a bonus, since the band is no longer working on the album, it's significantly less likely this one will get cancelled!

Starting January 16th in Mesa, AZ Machine Head will perform over 2 hours of bone-crunching metal anthems. The sets will change a bit night-to-night and and the band guarantees to play songs from every album in the catalog. Dates are as follows:

This week, we at the MetalUnderground.com Official Podcast are proud to present two fresh songs by Letters To The Blind, a brand new self-described “hybrid metal” act from Dayton, Ohio.

Letters To The Blind began as a long-distance recording project in 2011 between vocalist Chaz Bond and guitarist Blaine Gordon - former members of a band called BioGenesis - when the latter was living in Florida. The group was officially formed when Gordon returned to Ohio this past summer, and rounded out with drummer C.J. Jones and bassist Randy Walton.

Letters To The Blind play an invigorating mixture of melodic death, technical, and progressive metal, and elicits comparisons to Canada’s Into Eternity and Sweden’s Evergrey. The songs “Letters To The Blind” and “Creed Of Honor” (heard at sign-off, so stay tuned) receive major thumbs up from co-hosts Kevin Perez (n0thinghead) and Mike Smith (OverkillExposure), minor flaws aside.

Then Kevin examines a recent controversy involving accusations of stolen artwork, this time by Los Angeles melodic hardcore act The Ghost Inside. Some are claiming that the quill pen on the cover of the new album “Dear Youth” bears too close a resemblance to a similar image on the cover of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s “One Of Us Is The Killer.” [2013] A ripoff on the level of the recent Avenged Sevenfold - Overkill fiasco, or the simple use of a common motif? Tune in for Kevin’s opinion, as well as his review of “Dear Youth” itself.

Finally, Mike offers his extensive, detailed reaction to Machine Head’s new monster “Bloodstone & Diamonds,” the Bay Area metal giants’ eighth studio album and debut on Nuclear Blast Records. Full disclosure up front: as a confirmed “Head Case,” he’s crazy about it, but it took a few listens for him to get there. Stay tuned to find out why.

The Bay Area metal titans from Machine Head have released an official track-by-track for the brand new album "Bloodstone & Diamonds."

To hear how band mastermind Robb Flynn describes every track in his own words, head over to Spotify here.

Machine Head also recently dropped a music video for "Now We Died," which can be seen over at this location.

The band’s Nuclear Blast debut is available on several physical and digital formats and can be ordered here. "Bloodstone & Diamonds" was once again produced by Robb Flynn himself and Juan Urteaga, and like the last 7 out of 8 albums, was mixed by Colin Richardson. More...

Machine Head will headline the North American tour in January with no openers or even local bands performing, instead offering up a two-hour set each night.

"We’re doing ‘An Evening With’ Machine Head Meaning: it’ll just be us, folks,” commented guitarist/vocalist Robb Flynn. “We are really excited about the idea, playing longer sets, throwing in some deep cuts, and just having our own world. Promoters in the U.S. seem really stoked about it, some have said it feels like ‘an event’.”

In regards to the band’s decision to only headline for this touring cycle as well as no longer play festivals, Flynn elaborates: "We’re not trying to have a good time with a bunch of people who don’t know who we are. If Machine Head throws a party, big or small, we don’t want a bunch of ‘strangers’ there. This is about us and you guys, the die-hards! The Fucking Undesirables! We don’t care about the others out there. We’re here and we’re not going anywhere, if those people want to be a part of this, they know where to find us. So for the time being, and maybe ‘forever’ we’re done reaching out for them." More...